Israel group attacks Occupy Wall Street on bias

By BEN SMITH

10/13/2011 01:01 PM EDT

The Emergency Committee for Israel, a Republican group that's focused primarily on criticizing President Obama's Israel policy, is opening a new front on Occupy Wall Street and the politicians -- notably Nancy Pelosi and Obama -- who have spoken sympathetically of the protests, with a new ad featuring anti-Semitic and anti-Israel signs and incidents into a claim that the events are motivated by anti-Semitism.

"Tel President Obama and Leader pelosi to stand up to the mob," says the narrator of the spot, which the group says will air in a "substantial" buy in New York and Washington.

“It’s not surprising that elements of the modern left are anti-Semitic," said ECI chairman William Kristol in a statement. "It is surprising that respectable liberals have praised the protesters while ignoring the anti-Semitism. Liberals have pretended to see nothing hateful and hear nothing hateful, and therefore have said nothing to rebuke their allies. Will they now speak up?”

The occasional anti-semitic signs at the protests have drawn similar attention to the occasional racist signs at Tea Party events, and have in fact produced criticism and drawn counter-protests within the "Occupy" demonstrations, whose participants include no shortage of Jews.

The ECI ad is part of a broader conservative push to define the "Occupy" protests -- which polls currently show to be more popular than the Tea Party movement -- by their most extreme elements.